"What is the strongest muscle in your body?" I would ask my preschoolers. The answers I would receive would be everything from arms, legs to balled up fists. All of my students left my class knowing that it was our brain and all of the exercises we did were designed to strengthen that muscle. Whether we were doing yoga, painting, learning letters or playing with blocks in one of our centers, it was all about brain development and as an early childhood educator I was helping construct their brain architecture. I speak about this in the past tense because now I primarily work with sixth graders and I Substitute in other elementary grade levels. Regardless of their grade level, I always emphasize the power of their brains.
When we get knowledge of self, one of the degrees we learn as Five Percenters is a 32nd degree which asks, "What is the mental and physical power of a real devil?" In summary, we learn that a devil's mental power is nothing in comparison to that of the original man and that they are also physically weaker. We also learn more specifically that there is a 1.5 ounce variance between the weight of the original man's brain and the weight of the devil's brain -- i.e., the original man has 7.5 ounces of brain and the devil only has 6 ounces of brain. Typically when you hear us [Five Percenters] build on that degree we simply equate the 7.5 and 6 to a supreme mathematical correspondence. In other words you may hear something along the lines of, "7.5 is God's [7] Power [5]. 6 is Equality [6] or limitation because the devil's power is limited." While this perspective has some value, it does not tell us anything about the actual brain weight or where the figures 7.5 ounces and 6 ounces even come from. I have also heard misogynists state that "7.5 represents the mental power of man and 6 represents the limited mental power of women." These chauvinists are usually the same folks who ignorantly boast that it is not even important to know what those figures actually mean because "Allah, The Father told us to draw it up." That anti-academic excuse is usually their response to anything math or science related in our degrees. Willfully this article on brain weight and mental/physical power will encourage those who are learning degrees to be more studious.
7.5 ounces of brain vs. 6 ounces of brain
The average human brain of a normally hydrated person is about 3 lbs. 3 lbs is equal to 1400 grams which is 49 ounces. 85% of the brain is water weight. This means that 41.65 ounces of the brain's weight is water. When you subtract the 85% water weight [i.e., 41.65 ounces] from 49 ounces you get 7.3 or approx. 7.5 ounces of brain. Let me show you the math again:
BRAIN = 3 lbs, 1400 grams, 49 ounces
85% of BRAIN is water which equals 41.65 ounces
49 ounces - 41.65 ounces of water = 7.3 approximately 7.5 ounces
As shared above, 7.5 ounces is in reference to total average brain weight of a normally hydrated person. Well what about abnormal brain weight such as 6 ounces? Any difference in average brain weight, whether heavier or lighter, is based upon different factors including genetics, age, sex, body length, BMI, diet, ailments and other variables. Microcephaly, a rare genetic condition that causes small brain development, was first identified among the Pashtun people of Northern Pakistan. These Aryan descendants, often referred to as "white" Afghans, showed incidences of microcephaly 1 in 10,000 newborns while the worldwide average ranged from 1 in 30,000 to 1 and 250,000 newborns. Microcephaly has also been linked to the deadly mosquito-borne and sexually transmitted Zika virus outbreak that occurred in the mid to late 2000s in Polynesia, Africa, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and other countries of densely populated melanated people.
Aside from a genetic mutation, one common cause of abnormal brain weight is dehydration. Dehydration does more than give you a headache and dry mouth. According to some studies on how dehydration effects the brain, just a 1% reduction in body mass of a 150 lb person equates to a 3 lb loss of fluid in the body which includes the brain. This loss of fluid impairs our executive brain function, body temperature regulation, motor skills, sensory perception and causes brain tissue to shrink over time. What this indicates is that chronic dehydration leads to brain atrophy or shrinkage in brain volume over time. What some scientists have also discovered is that people that evolved in colder climates, where there is scarce vegetation and alkaline food sources, they were more prone to dehydration and its accompanied impairments. Regardless of the outside temperature, humans lose body moisture every day through breathing, urination, perspiration and other body functions. Without perspiration and lack of thirst as visible indicators, people in cold climates often think that they don't need water and cannot get dehydrated. Couple this with an acidic diet consisting of more than 75% meat which lacks fiber and requires more water to process, people are at a higher risk of dehydration. Interesting enough in the late 19th Century into the early 20th Century these cold climate descendants published pseudoscience rationalizing the complete opposite -- i.e., that melanated people from nutrient rich tropical places had significantly smaller brains, a lower I.Q. and were closer to apes on the scale of human evolution. People like Earnest Hooton even went as far as establishing a whole filed of comparative anatomy -- i.e., thus helping establish Harvard as the center of Physical Anthropology and creating the classification model that put white people as the upright model of civilized man and melanated people as low-brow primitives. Hooton's racist work also set the foundation for the American Association of Physical Anthropology and the National
Research Council to organize a committee to focus on the anatomy of the "Negro." That committee yielded African baby comparisons with young apes and published findings in the American Journal
of Physical Anthropology to prove, not suggest or imply, that Negroes were
closer to primitives than the white race. Devilish huh? Does all of this explain where the 6 ounces of brain weight and power comes from? Not entirely. Yet is does give you a sense of the different factors that actually causes abnormal brain weight and its accompanied deficiencies. Deficiencies that can cause a person to be more prone to weakness and potential wickedness.
The study of the brain is one of the most fascinating subjects we can undertake, especially as "scientists of life" [Five Percenters]. We are literally learning about our conduit of consciousness and repository of the mind! One of the many things that you learn about the brain is how cell phone technology and social media has literally changed our brain chemistry. When we receive social media notifications such as "likes", "loves", comments, shares and etc. our brain sends a chemical messenger called dopamine along a reward pathway that positively stimulates us. Dopamine is the feel-good neurotransmitter that also gives us a sense of pleasure and satisfaction when our senses are stimulated by eating food we like, hearing music we like, during intimacy, smelling a good fragrance or seeing a beautiful sight. Think about that! In regards to brain chemistry, the pleasure and satisfaction a person gets from a Facebook "like" is the same feeling of pleasure and satisfaction that they get from doing something in real life. Now you understand why many people are satisfied simply saying what they are going to do and never put forth the actual effort to do it. They are literally satisfied with the pleasure of a "like", "love", comment, prayer hands or other emojis they receive. They've been rewarded! Software Developers know this and designed social media platforms with this in mind. I wrote about this more extensively in my article Is Social Media The Digital "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out"?
In conclusion, how can we even claim supreme intelligence if we see no value in studying the muscle responsible for the executive function of that intelligence? How can we even actualize our mental and physical power if we aren't serious about studying the command center of that mental and physical power? As Five Percenters we sell ourselves short, and the people who we are supposedly teaching, by not putting forth the effort to study actual math and science. I understand that some of us have been in remedial classes growing up, we may have learning disabilities, we just never did well academically or etc. Yet because of this sense of lacking and inferiority complex some of us have developed some very negative attitudes towards scholarship. So instead of seeking help we make up obvious excuses to try and hide our insecurities or academic trauma. I am not a know-it-all and never really challenged myself in school. I did enough to get by. As I got older, especially when I gained knowledge of self I became more studious. This means that I keep dictionaries, other reference materials and an active library card so when I come across something that I don't understand I can take time to research it before I move forward in my studies. I also make sure that I am always connected to experts in various fields who can support me. Yes it is a tedious process and takes patience yet that is what comes along with being studious. Putting in that effort benefits everyone around us. Conversely, our lack of effort will continue to be a detriment to everyone around us, especially our children.
Peace, Saladin
